Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.

Search This Blog

Pages

Saturday, 13 May 2017

In September 2016, the US Department of Justice officially granted agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation [FBI] the right to impersonate journalists and infiltrate media organizations.

Naturally, the move sparked public outrage in the US and a wave of condemnation from organizations advocating press freedoms.

But as unsettled as some Americans may have been by this news, the truth is that the policy outlined by the Inspector General was little more than the introduction of new regulations to an otherwise customary practice.

In fact, the Office of the Inspector General was technically forced into compiling its report following revelations of a 2007 case during which an FBI agent pretended to be an Associated Press [AP] journalist to identify an elusive suspect online.

The entire affair initially appeared to be shaping up into quite a story, even drawing condemnation for the normally obedient AP.

“The Associated Press is deeply disappointed by the Inspector General’s findings, which effectively condone the FBI’s impersonation of an AP journalist in 2007,” the agency said in a statement. “Such action compromises the ability of a free press to gather the news safely and effectively and raises serious constitutional concerns.”

However, just like AP’s disappointment, the entire matter quickly went away, and the media diverted the public’s attention to more pressing issues, like Black Friday sales and the Christmas shopping season.

The sounds of a mockingbird

The absence of a free press or journalists willing to hold governments accountable is nothing new in the west.

That said, very few Americans actually have cursory knowledge of the extent to which US security and intelligence agencies have gone in order to establish control over their ‘independent’ media.

Most US citizens have never even heard of Operation Mockingbird, which had a momentous amount of influence on international public opinion by implanting the narrative of the Central Intelligence Agency [CIA] for decades.

Launched in 1950, the operation wasn’t revealed until a congressional investigation 25 years later.

Based on the testimony of journalists, heads of media organizations and even intelligence officers, one can argue with a great deal of certainty that the US clandestine services have a firm grip on the western media narrative.

The false news industry

The 1975 Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities claimed that 25 major publications provided cover for CIA operatives, planting fabricated stories and ensuring support of the agency’s agenda.

The CIA secretly recruited journalists and media outlets, funded the creation of student and cultural organizations, and ultimately worked its way into political campaigns, before employing similar methods abroad.

Some of the more high-profile outlets exposed during the hearings include the New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune, the Washington Post, CBS, Newsweek magazine, the American Broadcasting Company [ABC], the National Broadcasting Company [NBC], the Mutual Broadcasting System, the Miami Herald as well as the key CIA assets; the Associated Press and Reuters.

According to the testimony of a career intelligence officer William Egan Colby, the outlet’s managers and owners were more than happy to help.

“They were witting,” Colby told the committee.

In his book, ‘Derailing Democracy’, Dave Mcgowan later quoted Colby as saying, “the Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media.”

Meanwhile, Carl Bernstein’s ‘The CIA and the Media’ quotes another former CIA intelligence officer, William B. Bader, who said that, “there is quite an incredible spread of relationships.”

“You don’t need to manipulate Time magazine, for example, because there are [Central Intelligence] Agency people at the management level,” Bader adds.

Although the specifics are difficult to come by, the CIA’s use of the news media is known to be a lot more extensive than has ever been made public, involving everyone from owners, managers, senior newsroom staff and the world’s best known correspondents.

Since the ‘70s, Langley has claimed that the Mockingbird program has been dismantled and that it no longer recruits journalists. But a glimpse of the modern-day media landscape reveals the widespread use of tools championed by the intelligence agency, including suppression, censorship, and selective focus.

A former New York Times editor described the cooperation between the CIA on one side, and journalists, authors and artists on the other, as the most efficient display of American ‘soft power’.

The question we must ask is how this ‘soft power’ is being used in a world where the Soviet Union and the ‘threat from communism’ no longer exist.

Editorials by western journalists often make well-received assertions about developments in the Middle East, Ukraine, Venezuela, North Korea; the list goes on.

Often lost in translation is the fact that western journalism is an integral part of the double-edged sword of American diplomacy. And it continuously proves that American ‘soft power’ is ever-present – perhaps as powerful today as it was during the ideological struggle of the Cold War.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has taken full control of the strategic districts of Al-Qaboun and Tishreen east of the Syrian capital of Damascus after a sudden attack in the area. It’s believed that all militants of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Al-Rahman Corps had withdrew through underground tunnels to Eastern Ghouta.

Meanwhile, 40 militants and 300 civilians have left Barzeh district to Idlib. The SAA has entered a majority of areas in the district. It is expected that it will announce a full control over it within the next 24 hours.

Jaish al-Islam issued a statement condemning the evacuation agreement in Tishreen and Barzeh districts, adding that Jaish al-Islam had not agreed to evacuate its fighters from any location.

Click to see the full-size image

It also declared that Jaish al-Islam is committed to fighting in Tishreen and Al-Qaboun districts and supporting the fighters there. It’s clear that the statement of Jaish al-Islam is a pure propaganda against the Al-Rahman Corps and the HTS, as the districts were already under the full control of the SAA when the statement was released.

Separately, Jaish al-Islam targeted an SAA point in the town of Rayhan in Eastern Ghouta. The SAA responded with artillery fire on Jaish al-Islam positions in Duma.

Israeli police officers killed, on Saturday afternoon, a Jordanian citizen in the Chains Gate area, in Jerusalem’s Old city, after he reportedly stabbed and wounded a police officer.

The Israeli Police said the man approached police officers and stabbed one in the upper-part of his body, moderately wounding him.

Israeli daily Haaretz said an officer, in his late thirties, was injured and was evacuated to Shaare Zedek Medical Center, after suffering moderate wounds, but remained fully conscious and in a stable condition, and later confirmed his death.

It added that the Police “neutralized the assailant,” a term largely used by various Israeli media agencies, to indicate that the person was killed, or seriously wounded.

A video from the scene shows the slain person’s body on the ground, and a wounded Israeli police officer, with his gun drawn, standing nearby.

Samri added that the attacker is a 57 year old Jordanian man who entered the country a week ago on a tourist Visa, and added that the police is still investigating his background, including the reason of his visit.

The slain Jordanian man was later identified as Mohammad Abdullah al-Kasaji.

Following the incident, the police and soldiers closed Bab al-Amoud and Bab As-Sahera, leading to the Old City, and pushed dozens of officers into the area.

The soldiers also assaulted many Palestinians, and abducted one, before moving him to a nearby police station.

The abducted man, identified as Omran Rajabi, works as a guard of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, and was taken prisoner after the fatal shooting, when he started filming soldiers who were attacking a Palestinian woman, trying to enter the mosque.

On Wednesday, Algerian-born Bernard-Henri Levi, 68, the self-appointed French philosopher, was hit with a pie while promoting his propaganda documentary Peshmerga which is about the Kurds fighting the US-Israel created ISIS.

A Serb protester chanting Murderer, leave Belgrade hurled a pie at his face when he was presenting the film. Another protester climbed the stage with a banner bearing Jewish-communist hammer and sickle that read, Bernard Levy advocates imperialist murderers.

As a typical humiliated Zionist whore, Levy equated Serbia with Syria – he shouted Long Live Democracy in French. It’s is the same idiot who never get tired calling Israel being the only democracy in the Middle East – a very disputed statement even by Jew scholars (here,here).

Serbian nationalists see Levy as one of the main advocates of NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999 over Belgrade’s crackdown on Kosovan separatists.

MP Vojislav Seselj said in parliament: “Levy deserved much worse than a cake in face.”

Serbian largest newspaper Kurir even claimed that Bernard Levy faked the incident to make Serbia look bad.

“An identical incident occurred 23 years ago in Cannes, leaving doubt that Levy stages attacks just to make Serbs look bad,” the paper claimed. Being an Israeli agent in France, Levy must have learned such trick from Mossad.

Levy is a close friend of former French presidents, Jacques Chirac, Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy. In November 2011, speaking at the first national Jewish convention in Paris, organized by the French Israel Lobby, the Council of Jewish Organization of France, Levy boasted that he lead the anti-Qaddafi campaign because it was a Jewish thing to do.

“What I have done all these months, I did as a Jew. And like all the Jews of the world, I was worried. Despite legitimate anxiety is an uprising to be welcomed with favor, we were dealing with one of the worst enemy of Israel,” said Levy.

In February 2017, Levi stated that if French communist party presidential candidate Jean-Luc Melenchon wins, he would leave France. Jean-Luc Melenchon is considered pro-Palestinian by the country’s organized Jewry.

Bernard-Henry Levy, appeared on world-stage during his campaign for the release of Jewish film director Roman Polanski, who was arrested in Switzerland on September 26, 2009, for having unlawful sexual relationship with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.

On July 4, 2011, Bernard Levy sponsored first Israeli conference on Syria in Paris. The conference was attended by Bernard Kouchner, former French Jew foreign minister and founder of Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), Frederik Ansel, a member of Israel’s ruling Likud Party, Alex Goldfarb, former Knesset member and adviser to Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak and Andre Glucksmann, an Islamophobe French writer (here).

Bernard Levy had spewed his anti-Muslim propaganda from Bosnia to Bangladesh. In 2002, French president Chirac sent Levy to Afghanistan on an official mission to find out what Afghans expect from Paris to defeat Taliban. During his visit, Levy set-up Radio Free Kabul. Levi is author of several books including Qui a tue Daniel Pearl, in which he whines about Mossad spy Daniel Pearl who was killed in 2002 while snooping around as WSJ journalist in Karachi.

In 1971, Bernard Levy pleaded with French president Georges Pompidou to help Indian invasion of East Pakistan in order to establish a separate homeland for Bengali people.

(12/5/2017) ~ Syrian Arab Army units foiled Friday morning a fierce attack launched by Daesh (ISIS, ISIL, IS…) mercenary-terrorists on a number of military posts in the area between Aleppo’s Khanaser and Hama’s Atherya.

20 terrorists were killed and others were injured during the confrontation, while a number of their vehicles were destroyed.

Aleppo-Khanaser-Atherya is totally safe and the traffic movement is normal.

SAA kills Daesh apes and destroys their vehicles in Homs countryside

(11/5/2017) ~ Units of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) destroyed on Thursday vehicles for Daesh mercenary-terrorists and killed a number of them in al-Msherfah al-Janoubiya, Habra al-Gharbiya and Sharqiya, Rasm al-Tawil and Um Sahrij in Homs eastern countryside.

A military source added that the SAA units, in cooperation with the backup forces, carried out special military operations against the Daesh fortifications and gatherings in Homs eastern countryside, inflicting them heavy losses.

The Iraqi Army has started evacuating thousands of civilians from the districts remaining under the control of ISIS on the right side of Mosul city. It appears that ISIS has finally allowed civilians to leave its areas in the city.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi Army continued its operations in the Hawi al-Kanisah area along the western bank of the Tigris river. Now, Iraqi forces are on the brink of capturing the third bridge of Mosul.

Click to see the full-size map

The army also stormed the Al-Iktesadin district and launched a surprise attack on several ISIS positions in the Old Mosul area.

The Popular Mobilization Units (PMU) captured the road linking Sinjar to Baji and Kairawan as part of its Operation “Mohammed Rasool Allah 2″.

Click to see the full-size map

So far, the PMU has managed to evacuate 700 families from the Kairawan area west of Tal Afar. PMU engineer units are working to remove mines and IED from liberated areas.

A head of the PMU operations, Abu Montazer al-Husseini, stressed that Iraqi Prime Minister, Haid al-Abadi, ordered the PMU to move towards the Iraqi-Syrian border. The goal is to liberate Kairawan, Tal Afar, Sinjar and Sinu and then will secure the borders.

Some 70 ISIS members have withdrawn from the town of Tabqah and the Tabqah Dam under a deal with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Pentagon confirmed in a statement at the website of its International Coalition for Operation Inherent Resolve on May 11. Thus, the US-led coalition officially confirmed rumors that had been circulating about a possible open corridor for the ISIS terrorists operating in the town of Tabqah and the nearby Tabqah dam. This was the second deal of the US-backed force with ISIS that became widely known. Previously, a large group of ISIS members left the town of Manbij encircled by the SDF in the province of Aleppo.

Following the withdrawal from Tabqah, ISIS militants launched an attack on SDF positions in the villages of Ayed Kabir and Al-Mushirfa near Tabqah. Clashes are still ongoing in the area.

According to pro-SDF sources, 26 ISIS militants were killed and 3 vehicles were destroyed. ISIS claimed that five Kurdish fighters were killed in the village of Ajeel south of the Tabqah military airport.

Talal Sallou, spokesman of the SDF said that the next aim of the US-backed force is to isolate Raqqa city from the western, northern and eastern flanks prior to storming the ISIS self-proclaimed capital. Thus, ISIS will have an open way to the south, which means that the US-led coalition may be willing to push ISIS to withdraw into the Syrian desert where terrorists will fight the SAA and its allies.

Leader of Lebanese Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, announced on Thursday that the group has dismantled its military positions on the border with Syria as the mission of securing the area has been completed and the Lebanese eastern borders have became safe.

The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and Hezbollah have captured three hills in the mountains of Shomaria in the eastern Homs countryside after violent clashes with ISIS terrorists. As a result of this advance, pro-government fighters reached the outskirts of the village of Hamida.

Meanwhile, the SAA has been strengthening its forces in the vicinity of the Seen Military Airbase and at the Al-Tanf road. According to some pro-government sources, the SAA aims to take full control of the Al-Tanf road and then the Al-Tanf border area. However, this effort will be linked with clashes against Western-backed militants operating in the area.

Opposition sources announced the formation of a new force of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) in northern Aleppo named. The group was named “First Corps” and created with a Turkish support.

The militant groups known as the Sultan Mohammed Al-Fateh Brigade, the Samarkand Brigade, Jaish al-Ahfad, the Al-Muntaser Bellah Brigade, the 101st Division, the Al-Fatah Brigade, the Tala’a al-Nasr Brigade joined the First Corps. The group now includes 10,000 fighters, according to Capt. Abu Kanan al-Homsi. Its militants had received training and equipment from Turkey.

According to opposition sources, the main objective of the First Corps would be to fight ISIS, Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (HTS), and Kurdish militias (YPG, YPJ, PKK). The group will be stationed in the towns of Al-Rai, Akhtarin and Ghandoura in the northern Aleppo countryside.

In Idlib, the HTS issued a ban on the transfer of anti-tank missiles, Grad rockets and modern weapons and started an effort aimed to confiscate them from all local groups. HTS already arrested some members of Ana’ al-Sham and confiscated their weapons in the northern Hama countryside.

According to local sources, tensions have once again increased in the countryside of Idlib between Ahrar al-Sham and HTS. A new round of clashes in the province of Idlib may start soon.

Syrian War Report – May 11, 2017: Syrian Army Renews Operation Against ISIS In Eastern Aleppo

On May 10th, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces fully liberated the important town of Tabqah and the Tabqah dam from ISIS terrorists in the province of Raqqah. The town of Tabqah is located within 40 km of the ISIS self-proclaimed capital of Raqqah. US-led coalition aviation and US special forces assisted the Syrian rebels in the Tabqa campaign.

Meanwhile, the SDF resumed their anti-ISIS operations north of Raqqah, capturing the villages of al-Jalai and Mayselum that had been held by ISIS.

Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman Col. John Dorrian revealed what kind of arms the United States would supply to Kurdish forces (a core of the SDF) when he told reporters, “…..what we are talking about here is ammunition, small arms, heavy machine guns, and mortars….”

Earlier this week, the Pentagon announced that US President Donald Trump had approved a plan to directly arm Kurdish forces operating in Syria.

Government forces, led by the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) Tiger Forces, resumed anti-ISIS operations in the eastern Aleppo countryside, liberating the village of Al-Mahdoum and advancing further against ISIS near the Jirah Military Airport.

Russian Aerospace Forces supported the SAA advance by bombing ISIS gatherings and vehicles in the area between the Al-Jirah Military Airport and the town of Maskana.

Pro-ISIS sources claimed that ISIS members had destroyed a 23mm gun with an ATGM in the village of Kharaj Daham and a T-72 battle tank and BMP-1 vehicle in the village of Jarrah Saghir.

A number of Syrian soldiers were allegedly killed or wounded in the village of Atshana as a result of 2 VBIED attacks on SAA troops there.

ISIS also damaged an SAA T-72 battle tank in the village of Ma’moura after targeting it with an armed drone.

Russia has sent some 21 Soviet-made M-30 howitzers [122 mm] to Syria government forces, Fox News reported citing US officials. The artillery pieces arrived via cargo ship in the Syrian port city of Tartus in the past few days, according to the article.

The media outlet also speculated that Russia is sending more missiles for the advanced S-400 air defense system. The step is allegedly aimed at increasing the Russian air defense capabilities in Syria.

The administration of US President Donald Trump has approved a plan to directly arm Kurdish forces operating in Syria, the Pentagon said. Spokeswoman Dana W. White said the president made the decision Monday, describing the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as “the only force on the ground that can successfully seize Raqqa in the near future.”

The mainstream media and US officials have repeatedly argued that the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are a “multi-ethnic and multi-religious alliance” fighting against ISIS. However, since the formation of the SDF, the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units (YPJ) have remained the core of the organization. The upcoming advance on the ISIS-held city of Raqqa has pushed Washington to accept the reality publicly and to make a decision to army YPG and YPJ on an official level.

Meanwhile, Ankara argues that YPG and YPJ are terrorist groups affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The decision to arm Kurdish militias in Syria will further damage the already shaky US-Turkish relations.

Meanwhile, the SDF, backed up by US-led coalition forces, is still fighting against ISIS militants inside the town of Tabqa west of Raqqa. In late April and in early May, pro-SDF sources repeatedly spread reports that the town and the nearby dam were almost under the full control of the SDF. However, videos and photos appearing from the ground contested these reports.

Now, the number of ISIS militants operating in Tabqa and the Tabqa dam is estimated between 100 and 200 fighters and they are in very bad tactical situation. It’s expected that the town and the dam will be fully secured by the SDF this month.

Western backed militants have been trying to counter-attack Syrian army troops advancing in the desert southeast of Damascus. However, government forces were able to defend their gains in the area. Earlier this month, government troops have captured more than 70 square kilometers east of the al-Seen Military Airbase, setting control over Beir al-Siba, the Mount Sabahiyat and the Rishi, Tal Shahab, al-Sabab Biyar and the Zaza Checkpoint. In case of further advances, the Syrian army will attempt to reach areas controlled by the 5th Assault Corps south of Palmyra.

In northern Hama, sporadic clashes continued in the area of Zaqilyat. However, the situation remained relatively calm as no sides were launching large attempts in order to change the current status quo.

In eastern Damascus, militants and their families have been evacuating from the area of Qaboun under a fresh deal with the government. The evacuation will include few stages and then the area will be transferred under the control of government forces. So far, about 1,000 have officially left the area to Idlib.

Reports are circulating in various sources that the government advance with a strategic goal to reach the city of Deir Ezzor will be launched soon. This operation will be possible only if the safe zones agreement signed in Astana and implementing a ceasefire in a number of areas in Syria will be kept by all the sides.

For weeks now I have been getting panicked emails with readers asking me whether the USA had developed a special technology called “super fuses” which would make it possible for the USA to successfully pull-off a (preemptive) disarming first strike against Russia. Super-fuses were also mentioned in combination with an alleged lack by Russia of a functioning space-based infrared early warning system giving the Russians less time to react to a possible US nuclear attack.

While there is a factual basis to all this, the original report already mislead the reader with a shocking title “How US nuclear force modernization is undermining strategic stability: The burst-height compensating super-fuze” and by offering several unsubstantiated conclusions. Furthermore, this original report was further discussed by many observers who simply lack the expertise to understand what the facts mentioned in the report really mean. Then the various sources started quoting each other and eventually this resulted in a completely baseless “super fuse scare”. Let’s try to make some sense of all this.

Understanding nuclear strikes and their targets

To understand what really has taken place I need to first define a couple of crucial terms:

Hard-target kill capability: this refers to the capability of a missile to destroy a strongly protected target such as a underground missile silo or a deeply buried command post.

Counterforce strike: this refers to a strike aimed at the enemy’s military capabilities.

Countervalue strike: this refers to a strike on non-military assets such as cities.

Since strategic nuclear missile silos and command posts are well protected and deeply buried, only hard-target kill (HTK) capable missiles can execute a counterforce strike. Soft-target kill (STK) capable systems are therefore usually seen as being the ultimate retaliatory capability to hit the enemies cities. The crucial notion here is that HTK capability is not a function of explosive power, but of accuracy. Yes, in theory, a hugely powerful weapon can compensate to some degree for a lack of accuracy, but in reality both the USA and the USSR/Russia have long understood that the real key to HTK is accuracy.

During the Cold War, intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) were more accurate than submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) simply because targeting from the surface and from a fixed position was much easier than targeting from inside a submerged and moving submarine. The American were the first to successfully deploy a HTK capable SLBM with their Trident D-5. The Russians have only acquired this capability very recently (with their R-29RMU Sineva SLBM).

According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists just a decade ago only 20% of US SLBMs were HTK capable. Now, with the ‘super-fuse’ 100% of US SLBMs are HTK capable. What these super-fuses do is very accurately measure the optimal altitude at which to detonate thereby partially compensating for a lack of accuracy of a non-HTK capable weapon. To make a long story short, these super-fuses made all US SLBMs HTK capable.

Does that matter?

Yes and no. What that means on paper is that the US has just benefited from a massive increase in the number of US missiles with HTK capability. Thus, the US has now a much larger missile force capable of executing a disarming counterforce strike. In reality, however, things are much more complicated than that.

Understanding counterforce strikes

Executing a disarming counterforce strike against the USSR and, later, Russia has been an old American dream. Remember Reagan’s “Star Wars” program? The idea behind it was simple: to develop the capability to intercept enough incoming Soviet warheads to protect the USA from a retaliatory Soviet counter strike. It would work something like this: destroy, say, 70% of the Soviet ICBM/SLBMs and intercept the remaining 30% before they can reach the USA. This was total nonsense both technologically (the technology did not exist) and strategically (just a few Soviet “leakers” could wipe-out entire US cities, who could take such a risk?). The more recent US deployment of anti-ballistic missile systems in Europe has exactly the same purpose – to protect the USA from a retaliatory counterstrike. Without going into complex technical discussions, let’s just say that this point in time, this system would never protect the USA from anything. But in the future, we could imagine such a scenario

The USA and Russia agree to further deep cuts in their nuclear strategic forces thereby dramatically reducing the total number of Russian SLBM/ICBMs.

The USA deploys all around Russia anti-ballistic systems which can catch and destroy Russian missiles in the early phase of their flight towards the USA.

The USA also deploys a number of systems in space or around the USA to intercept any incoming Russian warhead.

The USA having a very large HTK-capable force executes a successful counterforce strike destroying 90% (or so) of the Russian capabilities and then the rest are destroyed during their flight.

This is the dream. It will never work. Here is why:

The Russians will not agree to deep cuts in their nuclear strategic forces.

The Russians already have deployed the capability to destroy the forward deployed US anti-ballistic system in Europe.

Russian warheads and missiles are now maneuverable and can even use any trajectory, including over the South Pole, to reach the USA. New Russian missiles have a dramatically shorter and faster first stage burn period making them much harder to intercept.

Russia’s reliance on ballistic missiles will be gradually replace with strategic (long-range) cruise missiles (more about that later).

This scenario mistakenly assumes that the USA will know where the Russian SLBM launching submarines will be when they launch and that they will be able to engage them (more about that later).

This scenario completely ignores the Russian road-mobile and rail-mobile ICBMs (more about that later).

Understanding MIRVs

Before explaining points 4, 5 and 6 above, I need to mention another important fact: one missile can carry either one single warhead or several (up to 12 and more). When a missile carries several independently targetable warheads it is called MIRVed as in “multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle”.

MIRVs are important for several reasons. First, one single missile with 10 warheads can, in theory, destroy 10 different targets. Alternatively, one single missile can carry, say 3-4 real warheads and 6-7 decoys. In practical terms what look like one missile on take-off can turn into 5 real warheads, all targeted at different objectives and another 5 fake decoys designed to make interception that more difficult. MIRVs, however, also present a big problem: they are lucrative targets. If with one of “my” nuclear warheards I can destroy 1 of “your” MIRVed missiles, I lose 1 warhead but you lose 10. This is one of the reasons the USA is moving away from land-based MIRVed ICBMs.

The important consideration here is that Russia has a number of possible options to chose from and how many of her missiles will be MIRVed is impossible to predict. Besides, all US and Russian SLBMs will remain MIRVed for the foreseeable future (de-MIRVing SLBMs make no sense, really, since the entire nuclear missile carrying submarine (or SSBN) is a gigantic MIRVed launching pad by definition).

In contrast to MIRVed missile, single warheads missiles are very bad targets to try to destroy using nuclear weapons: even if “my” missile destroys “yours” we both lost 1 missile each. What is the point? Worse, if I have to use 2 of “mine” to make really sure that “yours” is really destroyed, my strike will result in me using 2 warheads in exchange for only 1 of yours. This makes no sense at all.

Finally, in retaliatory countervalue strikes, MIRVed ICBM/SLBMs are a formidable threat: just one single R-30 Bulava (SS-N-30) SLBM or one single R-36 Voevoda (SS-18) ICBM can destroy ten American cities. Is that a risk worth taking? Say the USA failed to destroy one single Borei-class SSBN – in theory that could mean that this one SSBN could destroy up to 200 American cities (20 SLBMs with 10 MIRVs each). How is that for a risk?

Contrasting the US and Russian nuclear triad

Strategic nuclear weapons can be deployed on land, in the oceans or delivered by aircraft. This is called the “nuclear triad”. I won’t discuss the aircraft based part of the US and Russian triads here, as they don’t significantly impact the overall picture and because they are roughly comparable. The sea and land based systems and their underlying strategies could not be any more different. At sea, the USA has had HTK capabilities for many years now and the US decided to hold the most important part of the US nuclear arsenal in SSBNs. In contrast, the Russians chose to develop road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles. The very first one was the RT-2PM Topol (SS-25) deployed in 1985, followed by the T-2PM2 «Topol-M» (SS-27) deployed in 1997 and the revolutionary RT-24 Yars or Topol’-MR (SS-29) deployed in 2010 (the US considered deployed road-mobile strategic missiles, but never succeeded in developing the technology).

The Russians are also deployed rail-mobile missiles called RT-23 Molodets (SS-24) and are about to deploy a newer version called RS-27 Barguzin (SS-31?). This is what they look like:

Russian road mobile and rail mobile ICBMs

SSBNs and road and rail mobile missiles all have two things in common: they are mobile and they rely on concealment for survival as neither of them can hope to survive. The SSBN hides in the depths of the ocean, the road-mobile missile launcher drives around the immense Russian expanses and can hide, literally, in any forest. As for the rail-mobile missile train, it hides be being completely indistinguishable from any other train on the huge Russian railroad network (even from up close it is impossible to tell whether what you are seeing is a regular freight train or a missile launching special train). To destroy these systems, accuracy is absolutely not enough: you need to find them and you need to find them before they fire their missiles. And that is, by all accounts, quite impossible.

The Russian Navy likes to keep its SSBNs either under the polar ice-cap or in so-called “bastions” such as the Sea of Okhotsk. While these are not really “no-go” zones for US attack submarines (SSN), they are extremely dangerous areas where the Russian Navy has a huge advantage of the US (if only because the US attack submarine cannot count on the supper of surface ships or aircraft). The US Navy has some of the best submarines on the planet and superbly trained crews, but I find the notion that US SSNs could find and destroy all Russian SSBNs before the latter can launch unlikely in the extreme.

As for the land-based rail-mobile and road-mobile missiles, they are protected by Russian Air Defenses which are the most advanced on the planet, not the kind of airspace the US would want to send B-53, B-1 or B-2 bombers in. But most importantly, these missiles are completely hidden so even if the USA could somehow destroy them, it would failed to find enough of them to make a first disarming strike a viable option. By the way, the RS-24 has four MIRVs (make that 4 US cities) while the RS-27 will have between 10 and 16 (make that another 10 to 16 US cities vaporized).

Looking at geography and cruise missiles

Finally, let’s take a look at geography and cruise missiles. Two Russian cruise missiles are especially important to us: the Kh-102 and the 3M-14K(?):

KH-102

3M-14K

Range:

5500km

2600km

Launcher:

Strategic bomber

Aircraft, ship, container

Warhead:

Nuclear 450kt

Nuclear (unknown)

What is important with these two cruise missiles is that the KH-102 has a huge range and that the KM-14K can be fired from aircraft, ships and even containers. Take a look at this video which shows the capabilities of this missile:

Now consider where the vast majority of US cities are located – right along the East and West coasts of the USA and the fact that the US has no air defenses of any kind protecting them. A Russian strategic bomber could hit any West Coast from the middle of the Pacific ocean. As for a Russian submarine, it could hit any US city from the middle of the Atlantic. Finally, the Russians could conceal an unknown number of cruise missile in regular looking shipping container (flying Russian flag or, for that matter, any other flag) and simply sail to the immediate proximity to the US coast and unleash a barrage of nuclear cruise missiles.

How much reaction time would such a barrage give the US government?

Understanding reaction time

It is true that the Soviet and Russian space-based early warning system is in bad shape. But did you know that China never bothered developing such a space based system in the first place? So what is wrong with the Chinese, are they stupid, technologically backward or do they know something we don’t?

To answer that question we need to look at the options facing a country under nuclear missile attack. The first option is called “launch on warning”: you see the incoming missiles and you press the “red button” (keys in reality) to launch your own missiles. That is sometimes referred to as “use them or lose them”. The next option is “launch on strike”: you launch all you got as soon as a nuclear strike on your territory is confirmed. And, finally, there is the “retaliation after ride-out“: you absorb whatever your enemy shot at you, then take a decision to strike back. What is obvious is that China has adopted, whether by political choice or due to limitation in space capabilities, either a “launch on strike” or a “retaliation after ride-out” option. This is especially interesting since China possesses relatively few nuclear warheads and even fewer real long range ICBMs .

Contrast that with the Russians who have recently confirmed that they have long had a “dead hand system” called “Perimetr” which automatically ascertains that a nuclear attack has taken place and then automatically launches a counterstrike. That would be a “launch on strike” posture, but it is also possible that Russia has a double-posture: she tries to have the capability to launch on warning, but double-secures herself with an automated “dead hand” “launch on strike” capability.

Take a look at this estimate of worldwide stocks of strategic nuclear warheads: While China is credited with only 260 warheads, Russia still has a whopping 7’000 warheads. And a “dead hand” capability. And yet China feels confident enough to announce a “no first use” policy. How can they say that with no space-based nuclear missile launch detection capability?

Many will say that the Chinese wished they had more nukes and a space-based based nuclear missile launch detection capability, but that their current financial and technological means simply do not allow that. Maybe. But my personal guess is that they realize that even their very minimal force represents a good enough deterrent for any potential aggressor. And they might have a point.

Let me ask you this: how many US generals and politicians would be willing to sacrifice just one major US city in order to disarm China or Russia? Some probably would. But I sure hope that the majority would realize that the risk will always remain huge.

For one thing, modern nuclear warfare has, so far, only been “practiced” only on paper and with computers (and thank God for that!)? So nobody *really* knows for sure how a nuclear war would play itself out. The only thing which is certain is that just the political and economic consequences of would catastrophic and totally unpredictable. Furthermore, it remains very unclear how such a war could be stopped short of totally destroying one side. The so-called “de-escalation” is a fascinating concept, but so far nobody has really figured this out.

Finally, I am personally convinced that both the USA and Russia have more than enough survivable nuclear weapons to actually decide to ride out a full-scale enemy attack. That is the one big issue which many well-meaning pacifist never understood: it is a good thing that “the USA and Russia have the means to blow-up the world ten times over” simply because even one side succeeded in destroying, say, 95% of the US or Russian nuclear forces, the remaining 5% would be more than enough to wipe-out the attacking side in a devastating countervalue attack. If Russia and the USA each had, say, only 10 nuclear warheads then the temptation to try to take them out would be much higher.

This is scary and even sick, but having a lot of nuclear weapons is safer from a “first-strike stability” point of view than having few. Yes, we do live in a crazy world.

Consider that in times of crisis both the US and Russia would scramble their strategic bombers and keep them in the air, refueling them when needed, for as long as needed to avoid having them destroyed on the ground. So even if the USA destroyed ALL Russian ICBM/SLBMs, there would be quite a few strategic bombers in holding patterns in staging areas which could be given the order to strike. And here we reach one last crucial concept:

Counterforce strikes require a lot of HTK capable warheads. The estimates by both sides are kept secret, of course, but we are talking over 1000 targets on each side at least listed, if not actually targeted. But a countervalue strike would require much less. The US has only 10 cities with over one million people. Russia has only 12. And, remember, in theory one warhead is enough for one city (that is not true, but for all practical purposes it is). Just look what 9/11 did to the USA and imagine of, say, “only” Manhattan had been truly nuked. You can easily imagine the consequences.

Conclusion 1: super-fuses are not really that super at all

The super-fuses scare is so overblown that it is almost an urban legend. The fact is that even if all the US SLBMs are now HTK capable and even if Russia does not have a functional space-based missile launch detection capability (she is working on a new one, by the way), this in no way affects the fundamental fact that there is nothing, nothing at all, that the USA could come up with to prevent Russia from obliterating the USA in a retaliatory strike. The opposite is also true, the Russians have exactly zero hope of nuking the USA and survive the inevitable US retaliation.

The truth is that as far back as the early 1980s Soviet (Marshal Ogarkov) and US specialists had already come to the conclusion that a nuclear war is unwinnable. In the past 30 years two things have dramatically changed the nature of the game: first, an increasing number of conventional weapons have become comparable in their effects to small nuclear weapons and cruise missiles have become vastly more capable. The trend today is for low-RCS (stealth) long range hypersonic cruise missiles and maneuvering ICBM warheads which will make it even harder to detect and intercept them. Just think about it: if the Russians fired a cruise missile volley from a submarine say, 100km off the US coast, how much reaction time will the US have? Say that these low-RCS missile would begin flying at medium altitude being for all practical purpose invisible to radar, infra-red and even sound, then lower themselves down to 3-5 m over the Atlantic and then accelerate to a Mach 2 or Mach 3 speed. Sure, they will become visible to radars once they crosses the horizon, but the remaining reaction time would be measured in seconds, not minutes. Besides, what kind of weapon system could stop that missile type of anyway? Maybe the kind of defenses around a US aircraft carrier (maybe), but there is simply nothing like that along the US coast.

As for ballistic missile warheads, all the current and foreseeable anti-ballistic systems rely on calculations for a non-maneuvering warhead. Once the warheads begin to make turns and zig-zag, then the computation needed to intercept them become harder by several orders of magnitude. Some Russian missiles, like the R-30 Bulava, can even maneuver during their initial burn stage, making their trajectory even harder to estimate (and the missile itself harder to intercept).

The truth is that for the foreseeable future ABM systems will be much more expensive and difficult to build then ABM-defeating missiles. Also, keep in mind that an ABM missile itself is also far, far more expensive than a warhead. Frankly, I have always suspected that the American obsession with various types of ABM technologies is more about giving cash to the Military Industrial Complex and, at best, developing new technologies useful elsewhere.

Conclusion 2: the nuclear deterrence system remains stable, very stable

At the end of WWII, the Soviet Union’s allies, moved by the traditional western love for Russia, immediately proceeded to plan for a conventional and a nuclear war against the Soviet Union (see Operation Unthinkable and Operation Dropshot). Neither plan was executed, the western leaders were probably rational enough not to want to trigger a full-scale war against the armed forces which had destroyed roughly 80% of the Nazi war machine. What is certain, however, is that both sides fully understood that the presence of nuclear weapons profoundly changed the nature of warfare and that the world would never be the same again: for the first time in history all of mankind faced a truly existential threat. As a direct result of this awareness, immense sums of money were given to some of the brightest people on the planet to tackle the issue of nuclear warfare and deterrence. This huge effort resulted in an amazingly redundant, multi-dimensional and sophisticated system which cannot be subverted by any one technological breakthrough. There is SO much redundancy and security built into the Russian and American strategic nuclear forces that a disarming first strike is all but impossible, even if we make the most unlikely and far-fetched assumptions giving one side all the advantages and the other all the disadvantages. For most people it is very hard to wrap their heads around such a hyper-survivable system, but both the USA and Russia have run hundreds and even thousands of very advanced simulations of nuclear exchanges, spending countless hours and millions of dollars trying to find a weak spot in the other guy’s system, and each time the result was the same: there is always enough to inflict an absolutely cataclysmic retaliatory counter-strike.

Conclusion 3: the real danger to our common future

The real danger to our planet comes not from a sudden technological breakthrough which would make nuclear war safe, but from the demented filled minds of the US Neocons who believe that they can bring Russia to heel in a game of “nuclear chicken”. These Neocons have apparently convinced themselves that making conventional threats against Russia, such as unilaterally imposing no-fly zones over Syria, does not bring us closer to a nuclear confrontation. It does.

The Neocons love to bash the United Nations in general, and the veto power of the Permanent Five (P5) at the UN Security Council, but they apparently forgot the reason why this veto power was created in the first place: to outlaw any action which could trigger a nuclear war. Of course, this assumes that the P5 all care about international law. Now that the USA has clearly become a rogue state whose contempt for international law is total, there is no legal mechanism left to stop the US from committing actions which endanger the future of mankind. This is what is really scary, not “super-fuses”.

What we are facing today is a nuclear rogue state run by demented individuals who, steeped in a culture of racial superiority, total impunity and imperial hubris, are constantly trying to bring us closer to a nuclear war. These people are not constrained by anything, not morals, not international law, not even common sense or basic logic. In truth, we are dealing with a messianic cult every bit as insane as the one of Jim Jones or Adolf Hitler and like all self-worshiping crazies they profoundly believe in their invulnerability.

It is the immense sin of the so-called “Western world” that it let these demented individuals take control with little or no resistance and that now almost the entire western society lack the courage to even admit that it surrendered itself to what I can only call a satanic cult. Alexander Solzhenitsyn prophetic words spoken in 1978 have now fully materialized:

A decline in courage may be the most striking feature that an outside observer notices in the West today. The Western world has lost its civic courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, in each government, in each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling and intellectual elites, causing an impression of a loss of courage by the entire society. There are many courageous individuals, but they have no determining influence on public life (Harvard Speech, 1978)

Five years later, Solzhenitsyn warned us again saying,

To the ill-considered hopes of the last two centuries, which have reduced us to insignificance and brought us to the brink of nuclear and non-nuclear death, we can propose only a determined quest for the warm hand of God, which we have so rashly and self-confidently spurned. Only in this way can our eyes be opened to the errors of this unfortunate twentieth century and our hands be directed to setting them right. There is nothing else to cling to in the landslide: the combined vision of all the thinkers of the Enlightenment amounts to nothing. Our five continents are caught in a whirlwind. But it is during trials such as these that the highest gifts of the human spirit are manifested. If we perish and lose this world, the fault will be ours alone. (Tempelton Speech, 1983)